The fashion designer will present one of her creations - a three-piece suit made of Ghanaian cloth - next week at an event hosted by Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, at Buckingham Palace.

The Commonwealth Fashion Exchange, spearheaded by Livia Firth who co-founded sustainability brand consultancy Eco-Age, connects designers and artisans from Britain and many of its former colonies to showcase and champion sustainable fashion.

The scheme pairs up-and-coming designers like Sydney-Davies with fashion giants - from Britain's Stella McCartney to New Zealand's Karen Walker, and big global brands such as Burberry.

Major fashion brands and leading designers should take note, and strive to be ethical and sustainable, Sydney-Davies said.

"We're the ones producing the clothes," the 31-year-old said from the living room of her home in Surrey, southern England.

"We should control where they come from and how they're made," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation as she pulled a purple organza dress from a rack of brightly coloured clothes.

The advent of fast fashion, with consumers constantly buying and discarding clothing, has fuelled the risk of worker abuses such as forced labour in global supply chains, campaigners say.

The conditions of garment workers hit headlines and sparked global outrage after the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh, when the collapse of a factory complex killed about 1,100 workers - many employed by suppliers to Western retailers.

Yet many fashion brands have been criticised for failing to improve conditions for workers - from poor safety standards and long working hours to low pay and bans on forming trade unions.

"In a world where fashion is fast and brands try to hide the real impact of their endless production cycles - actions speak louder than words," said Firth of Eco-Age.

"Rather than launching yet another report on the fashion system, we wanted to create a powerful example of how fashion can be at its best," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.